Pages

Sunday, 29 May 2016

It has been a lovely couple of days and I have had to spend them sorting packing in order to sell the house, instead of down on the allotment. :(

However I have managed to complete a Cross Stitch Exchange of a magnet:

The design and thread were chosen by another member, and the final piece was received by the final member, so we all prepare a piece, create a piece and receive a piece. This is based on the round robin idea, but you end up with something useful, already made up for you, as often the RR's get packed away to be made up later, and then never really get finished.

I have also managed to make a birthday card for my brother, which I will need to send tomorrow. I decided to try a 3D pop-up card using the 2nd pop-up cards CD Rom by Robert Addams. Unfortunately the video explaining how to put the card together would not work and so the top part of the castle has been left off, as it was difficult to discern how it was supposed to go together.

The front was made using the front panel and pyramage pieces from the CD-Rom, with an edge of patterned paper cut with a Tim Holtz edging die, and finished with a little clip-art dragon which I am unsure where I got it from unfortunately, that I coloured with Sharpie markers. The front was created following sketch #161 from Atlantic Hearts.

He was a rescue bird when he was three years old, as his main owner had died and the elderly widower could not look after him. He has agarophobia and will have panic attacks when he is out of his cage, however he is getting better with this as trust grows. He also has seperation anxiety and will scream when he is left alone, and also likes to have hold of people with his very agile foot.

Friday, 27 May 2016

What a lovely day it has been, while I have been stuck in work and then in the car - accident, break down, another accident, and yet another break down, and I get home about an hour late! No allotment for me tonight then lol.

Ok so you may be wondering how these are inspired by the masculine picture - but I have used the colours and the geometric lines, and the tractor is usually seen on a farm, where you can also usually find peacocks and hens :) So I made a Kraft ATC base, and used a card blank from the new Papermania Geometrics range to which I added a brown pearlescent paper strip. I used spellbinders nesting dies to cut a large frame from hen paper (Papermania Country Life collection) and from a Capsule Collection orange patterned paper a smaller frame. I then die-cut the peacock from the same orange and brown papers. The brown I trimmed the tail of so that it would sit nicely within the frame. To finish I added Dovecraft Liquid Pearls is black (which I still need to get the hang of using).

Here is also an update on the Dino Height Chart - approaching 80hours now! Do you want to take votes on how long it will take to complete this first Dinosaur???

No intros for you today - I have been sorting the house out - but the next introduction will be member of the family that is larger than those you have seen so far and only has two legs instead of four :D.

And although i have not been down to the allotment today, I did take some photos a couple of days ago:

Yellow flowers (buttercups and brassicas)

Potatoes

Gooseberry

Lots of aphids on my nettle patch (where are my ladybirds and lacewings???)

Not sure what this is?

Brussels Sprouts - still quite small

Supposed to be a brassica bed but there are definitely more potatoes growing than cabbages!!

Wednesday, 25 May 2016

The rain is really coming down as I write this, but it is not heavy, fat raindrops, but rather the really fine stuff that feels like it really shoudn't be making you so wet! Anyway, enough of the whining abou the weather and on to why I am really here.

It is new challenge day over at Creative Momentsand the twist for this fortnight is to add some music to your creation. Our sponsors for this challenge are:

I have used Elf Playing Accordion from Angies Cards and Digis for my creation this time - and what else could I use this image for but a Christmas card. This will be the third one in a week! I am certainly getting ahead of myself. Here is the card:

I used a scalloped base card and layered it with gold holographic paper and then musical paper from Christmas Tidings by Papermania. I used border peel-offs for the edges of this panel. The image was coloured with Promarkers - using the Brights and the Nudes packs - then layered onto gold glitter card 9from wilkinsons) and trimmed to size. This was placed on an angle and a jingle bell added to the top. Finally the sentiment peel-off was added.

As promised here is another introduction for you. This is Cocoa, sister of Crinkle. There were two brothers for these also, but brother 1 was given to a young girl who fell in love, and brother 2 unfortunately had to be PTS as he really deteriorated after losing his older female cage mate! This little girl is very slim compared to the rest of the mice (well most of them) and this is probably because she is so active. As soon as you open the cage she is there trying to squeeze past you to get out into the world, and she doesn't stop once she is out. It was very difficult to get this picture, and you can see from the second one that she just keeps moving, hence the bottom beign in focus not the face lol.

Yup - she is not the prettiest but she still has a lovely personality and can keep you amused for hours! They are really great pets for children, but most pet shops no longer stock them, which is such a shame.

Finally I would like to share some pictures of my garden:

And lastly, a new audio book review:

Wolf to the Slaughter by Ruth Rendell

This is a crime story with a twist. There is no real
evidence that a crime has been committed, but the police know that something is
amiss when an absent-minded artist comes into the station looking for a cleaner
as his sister has gone off, and not even left him a note, and an anonymous
letter arrives informing them that a murder has happened and Anne is dead,
which happens to be the sister’s name. As the police investigate the case gets
weirder and weirder. This is a good story with some unseen twists, although you
do guess that something is going to happen in that direction, but not quite
what. It is a short book, being only six discs, but fun to listen to, and
without the tension that usually comes with this sort of story, so it is more
light-hearted than usual.

Wolf to the Slaughter by Ruth Rendell

This is a crime story with a twist. There is no real
evidence that a crime has been committed, but the police know that something is
amiss when an absent-minded artist comes into the station looking for a cleaner
as his sister has gone off, and not even left him a note, and an anonymous
letter arrives informing them that a murder has happened and Anne is dead,
which happens to be the sister’s name. As the police investigate the case gets
weirder and weirder. This is a good story with some unseen twists, although you
do guess that something is going to happen in that direction, but not quite
what. It is a short book, being only six discs, but fun to listen to, and
without the tension that usually comes with this sort of story, so it is more
light-hearted than usual.

Monday, 23 May 2016

I am managingit so far - a blog post every couple of days. However, this does have to be a quick one as I have to sort the house out for the estate agent coming round to take pictures tomorrow after work - not easy when you have pets and lots of stuff that you are in the process of going through!! Lots of stuffing things inside drawers/cubbyholes, then I can get it all back out again afterwards lol.

However, I want to share my cross stitched picture I made for a friends leaving gift at work:

It is only a small design, but I didn't have time to do one of the larger designs I have hidden away in my files, and the lady was very happy with it. A simple wooden frame painted blue sets the design of brilliantly (although maybe a paler blue would have been better - but I like the fact that the bright colour makes it pop, where a paler colour may have just washed out the whole design).

I would like to enter this picture for the following Anything Goes challenges: